The Imperious Life
by bergundy
Summary: A group of disconnected oneshots, mostly alternate-universe. Scene Three: She gives him reasons. Sasusaku-ish.
1. Chapter 1

**A moment: Sakura, aged 19, between one year and the next.**

**-- -- -- -- -- **

Most people woke to the sound of an alarm clock. (On most days, so would Sakura.)

This morning, she woke to the dream of someone plucking her eye out.

The clock ticked on her bedside table. She cast a bleary glance at it. _Ten-thirty already?_

With a groan, she rustled out of bed.

-- -- -- -- --

There was no one else in the house these days. Sakura had lived in a single-parent family since the age of six, and her mother had left for a long-weekend trip with friends she'd made at a tea gathering. Sakura didn't know these friends; she'd been attending her first year in college.

'_Freshmans,' crowed Naruto, 'that's what we'll be all over again. Say, Sakura, d'you think the Bastard –'_

The Bastard was Naruto's term of endearment for his best friend, Sasuke.

' – _Will get mobbed by girls again?'_

There were two reasons why Sasuke would get mobbed: one, for being horribly good-looking, athletic, and smart; two, for knowing his brother's cell phone number. Sakura couldn't remember if Sasuke had ever given out Itachi's number in revenge.

'_It's fresh_men_, idiot,' corrected Sasuke._

'_Oh geez,' muttered Shikamaru, 'what's all the fuss about? We're all from the same school. It'll just be like going to a pricier high school after a bunch of troublesome forms.'_

And that was why Sakura was ostracized now.

To be fair, she'd taken the first step. The graduating class of Konoha High naturally became the new students of Konoha College. Suddenly, as she'd been filling in the application form, an upwelling of resentment and panic had choked her throat. _That was it?_ Sure, she wasn't valedictorian (that was Sasuke, duh) but saledictorian had an okay ring to it. Couldn't she at least leave the vicinity and see something different?

In a way, though, her friends had been right to shun her. Konoha High, then Konoha College. It was more than tradition; it was family.

With absent fingers, Sakura brushed the eraser dust off her desk. Her touch lingered over the textbook before opening to the inside cover. _Psychometrics: A Study in Five Parts_.

She didn't see the words.

She saw the dark, steady eyes of her student mentor – dark eyes that looked black but were really wine-red, especially when light splashed into those irises.

'_I'll be in touch with you over the summer,' he said._

_She nodded. 'I might switch majors. Or take double majors.'_

'_What do you want to do, Sakura?'_

_I want to carve a place for myself, _she thought_. To help people but still be able to discover. _To walk in the footsteps of those who had preceded her from this university far away from all that she'd known. To be on par with the graduate who had invented a new type of sutures; the other graduate who had not discovered the philosopher's stone, but came very close with a compound and a procedure that since then had saved many lives; another graduate who had made breakthroughs in psychoanalysis…

_To be counted the equal of the young man seated across from her._

'_I'll find out,' she said. Away from all that's familiar and safe, I'll find out._

_Itachi nodded, and gave her a piece of paper. His number._

There would be no visit from Ino today _(Ino was hurt and furious, still.)_

Nor from Naruto _(Naruto was betrayed and temporarily severed by her choice)._

Nor from Sasuke _(Sasuke was himself)._

But today, Sakura defined herself by other things – her ideas. Her aspirations. Her long-buried ambition.

She took out her cell phone and looked at the scrap of paper clipped to the first page of the textbook,

and dialed.****

-- -- -- -- --

_Today, I'll be the one to leave. _


	2. Chapter 2

**A piece of unbiased advice: **Or so he likes to tell himself.

-- -- -- -- --

Sakura's large green eyes stared at him with an uncharacteristically manic gleam. Or rather, the manic part was in-character, but not exactly the same. There was just something off about it, but in any case, Sasuke already knew why.

He leaned his hands on the desk – nothing like the large, imposing piece of furniture in the Hokage's office, but it was a good enough approximation - and gave the pretty, expectant face before him a long, significant look. Or tried to.

"Do you have something to say to me, Sasuke-_kun_?"

Oh God, this was unbearable.

He ground his teeth together, hating every minute of this. "Sakura. I…"

"Yes, Sasuke-_kun_?"

"Of course it's the most idiotic thing you'd ever do, and I would probably never respect you again, but I need to know your answer to this question."

He sounded pathetic. Sakura's expression told him so. Actually, her face was getting redder from the effort of holding back a huge bark of laughter.

_I am going to _kill him_ after this, _thought Sasuke, _and make a clean sweep of any other witnesses._

With a valiant effort, he continued. "Personally, I would advise you to say no. Not just this time, but for all time. Because even if you say it to me, there are going to be others –"

A sweet smile widened Sakura's mouth. "News flash, Sasuke-kun, it's already happened about – six, seven times?"

" – and you know what they looked like afterwards," Sasuke said. The memory of violence relaxed him slightly. It was getting easier! "So, uh…"

Not.

Sakura's head tilted. "What question were you going to ask me?"

There was a small velvety box in his right pocket. His fingers closed around it, but didn't pull it out of its hiding place.

He opened his mouth. Green eyes watched him with equal parts affection and benign malice.

Sasuke backed away from the desk, shoved his hands into his messy black hair, and snarled at the ceiling. "I can't do it!" He glared at the serene figure seated behind the desk. "F – this, I can't." It felt _wrong! _

Sakura's image disappeared in a puff of smoke. "Wow…" said his teammate. "You suck. You really do."

"Shut up."

"You stink at this."

"I haven't exactly done this before," Sasuke snapped.

"Either you're babbling or you're constipated. You need some help, you bastard." Naruto stretched luxuriously. "Oh, man, do you need help." His blue eyes scrutinized Sasuke's face as he gave him a playful, malevolent grin. "But don't worry.

"If Sakura can like you, she'll like you even when you're messing up your wedding proposal."

-- -- -- -- -- --

_And he was right. _


	3. Chapter 3

**(Sasusaku-ish.) **She gives him reasons.

-- -- -- -- --

He opens the door and she's there, like clockwork.

"Why do you keep coming here?"

"It's like picking at a scab," she says blithely, and he can understand that. It's a natural, unconscious action, a bad habit. Sometimes you bleed, when the skin underneath is still thin and too raw. But sometimes, the ugly clot peels back, and there's new skin, pink and clean and better than any balm.

The day he comes back, hauling Naruto behind him – or maybe Naruto's hauling him – and both of them looking like drowned rats, he finds himself coerced into letting their teammate check them over for injuries they may be concealing. She's insistent and annoying, and she shows up more frequently now. Once-every-three-weeks becomes once every three days.

"Why are you here?" He asks, because his wounds are long healed and he has a terrible urge to fidget with the bandages wrapped around his hand.

"I'm going through a phase."

That's encouraging, he thinks, feigning irritation. Phases pass, just like the details in old memories. The emotion is remembered, but the event blurs. They become disjointed fragments – the softness of a hand before it acquired all those calluses, the eternity captured in a whiff of summer air – and then they don't mean anything. That's what he tells himself. Then he remembers that the moon also goes through phases. And the thing about the moon's phases is, they return.

-- -- -- -- --

The weather is horrible outside, perfect for solitude. Inside, he runs a hand over the top of a shelf, and his fingers come away with dust. A flash of sheet lightning from the window illuminates all the untidy corners of the house.

And there is a knock on the door.

He composes his face and answers. "Stop coming."

Her smile used to be tentative, vaguely pleasant, but today her hair is dripping into her face and she snaps with a terseness borne of familiarity, "Tell the rain to stop falling."

As if it would listen, not that he really dared to hope it would. Sometimes it is heavy and brutally cold, like two dark eyes in the mirror; lightning slashes lines in the sky and thunder roars in his ears like an angry god, a bitter god, who may leave his eyes wet when he wakes for no reason he will tell. There are other times, though, when the rain slides like cool silk over skin, blurring the boundaries between roof and sky and asking him to dance. This is the now, when the rain reminds him of what it means to live, and when Sakura reminds him of what it is like to stand in the f – ing cold rain after dealing with a crapload of patients and waiting for him to answer the door. She _has _turned out a little rough on the edges after all, and he decides that it's okay.

And eventually, Sasuke stops asking – just opens the door and pads away after letting Sakura in. One day, he starts to leave the door unlocked.

-- -- -- -- --


End file.
